Standing value of first and second thinnings

[Big J]

25 minutes ago, slack ma girdle said:

9 hours ago, Big J said:

I've just ordered this machine, which should make life a bit easier in young stands: 
 
 
It's cheap and cheerful, but it's able to do a 16m tree in under a minute, which is many, many times quicker than a man with a saw. 

How cheap?

About £18k for the base model, but with all the extras (diesel motor being one of them) £23,500. In hairy young softwood, you're lucky to do 7-8 tonnes per day per man. Two men should be able to do 60 tonnes a day with the processor. 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Big J said:

 In hairy young softwood, you're lucky to do 7-8 tonnes per day per man.

I doubt we ever got up to that, mind we were in scots pine mostly and the trees were 0.05m3 so if you didn't  have a good assortment of PSR material  paid by the piece and just cut pulp  the pay was poorer. PSR made the forwarding a challenge.

 

Prior to that I pulled tree lengths out as it seemed to result in a better selection and I'd be making 50 trips a day over an average 500 metre distance.

 

Last week I visited the lad who was working for the opposition respacing natural regen from the period when I'd moved on to hardwood, about 83 I'd guess, he was very prolific with a saw. Now he owns and drives a timberjack  forwarder with intelligent boom control, self levelling and rotating cab and shifts 150 tonne a day (mind its 5metre douglas sawlogs off a clearfell). We've come a long way but I doubt we'll produce crops like this with the current establishment and thinning regime.

[shavey]

9 hours ago, openspaceman said:

I doubt we ever got up to that, mind we were in scots pine mostly and the trees were 0.05m3 so if you didn't  have a good assortment of PSR material  paid by the piece and just cut pulp  the pay was poorer. PSR made the forwarding a challenge.

 

Prior to that I pulled tree lengths out as it seemed to result in a better selection and I'd be making 50 trips a day over an average 500 metre distance.

 

Last week I visited the lad who was working for the opposition respacing natural regen from the period when I'd moved on to hardwood, about 83 I'd guess, he was very prolific with a saw. Now he owns and drives a timberjack  forwarder with intelligent boom control, self levelling and rotating cab and shifts 150 tonne a day (mind its 5metre douglas sawlogs off a clearfell). We've come a long way but I doubt we'll produce crops like this with the current establishment and thinning regime.

 

Just out of interest back then what was your difference in price between fencing and pulp , ours was £4.50  

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, shavey said:

 

Just out of interest back then what was your difference in price between fencing and pulp , ours was £4.50  

My memory isn't that good  but it was significant, rails were worth a premium over 8ft tree stakes then 5'6" stakes, these we were paid by the piece.

 

That was first thinnings or respacing regen and there was a blip in the price-size curve then which meant second thinnings were worth less as  they were too big for PSR and too small for getting many small bars from them, so much tended to go for newsprint pulp. When subbing I got caught out by the harvesting company because the assortment meant the price overall was bad. I think we got £6/tonne cut and extract for 1 metre pulp and about £8 for bars down to 5" under bark. At the time I both subbed for a harvesting company and bought standing. I seldom produced pulp on my own timber when producing PSR as I'd prefer to waste small bends in order to maximise the various post stake and rails. As I said earlier the harvesting company, who also owned the stake plant at the time,"cooked" the figures so it appeared to the land owner that all produce including pulp showed a return when in fact the harvesting and haulage of pulp probably exceeded the delivered price, so they paid themselves less for the PSR to subsidise losses on pulp. Consider also at that time as well as treating all the stumps with urea we had to remove all produce over 2" and cut tops to less than 6ft so they would dry out before becoming hosts to the various pine beetles.

 

As I said I look back on the period as being enjoyable but financially disastrous. I do pass a plantation by aspen Bob's yard where we did the first thinning and it has just been machine harvested, its a good looking pine plantation now.

 

This would have been the period 1978-83

Edited June 25, 2018 by openspaceman
added date

[Ciaran Taylor]

Depending on prices but for chip only job up to 500ton I have to offer 5-10/ton to compete. Any site above 500ton and I don't even get asked. Cut and extract is down below 15/ton on those jobs.

[Andy2873]

How long is a piece of string? Price depends on ease of site, size of trees, hard or softwood, any sawlogs, estimated production.